The Picnic
by FrostedPurpleIrises91
Summary: A family goes out for a picnic a few days after the announcement of the Cell Games. Unfortunately, they paid no attention to the coordinates the android supplied in the broadcast... Oneshot. T for angst, references to death/suicide.


**Ooookay... So this is a test run DBZ fic. I've just taken interest in DBZ recently but I've had ideas for fics in that fandom. I wrote this oneshot with the purpose of practicing with characterizing canon characters correctly and just for overall writing development. Cell is featured in this oneshot and he will be a main character in a longer story I have planned: so, I decided to write about him to see if I got his personality right. If I didn't, PLEASE let me know so I can be aware of my mistakes. I want to make sure he's not OOC. This oneshot is kinda long but hopefully it'll be enjoyable enough. Reviews/comments/constructive criticism are greatly appreciated too. Anyway, thanks for your time please enjoy! :)**

The Picnic

Seya blankly stared ahead at the road. She was thankful no one else was on it because she was hardly paying attention to her surroundings to begin with. Her eyes looked tired and her gaze was hollow. To her, Seya felt as if her mind and her body were no longer in synch with each other. Anymore, she felt disconnected and painfully dismal. Her thoughts were zombie-like yet determined.

But despite this, she had a sliver of happiness within her body. All she had in mind was one thing and one thing only.

She turned her head around, daring to take her eyes off the road for a few fleeting seconds. Her daughters were sitting in the backseat tranquilly. The girls, a teenager who was approximately sixteen and the other, a six year old, looked out their respective windows.

"Are you alright?" Seya asked her children.

"Smashing," her eldest, Chi-lan, replied. "Nothing's better than knowing when you're going to die."

"Don't start this with me right now, young lady. Your sister is next to you."

The youngest soul in the vehicle, Hanyu, was daft to her mother and sister's dialogue. She was staring out her window, daydreaming about unicorns, butterflies and rainbow highways that led to mystical realms made of chocolate and pixie dust. There even was a faint smile on her face as she fantasized about her imaginary world where no troubles existed.

"Don't shake her out of that trance," Seya instructed Chi-lan.

"We'll, it's true," the teen asserted. "You can't hide the truth forever, Mom."

"I'm trying to make our last days on Earth worth it. That includes minimizing on speaking about all the crazy stuff going on."

"Mom, she knows about everything. But she acts like nothing's going on at the same time." She closed her eyes and massaged her eyelids which were were painted over with several thick coats of black mascara. "It's disgusting."

"Chi-lan, your nihilistic attitude is what's disgusting. It needs to end. I don't need it rubbing off onto Hanyu. "

"I'm a realist! What does it matter anyway?"

"No more!" Seya glared at her eldest child. "Like I said, I don't want our final days to be filled with bickering and anger."

"You're a fool."

"That's fine, Chi-lan. Your little sister is acting more mature than you are."

"Let's just get this stupidity done and over with…" Chi-lan rolled her eyes. "This is so pointless anyway."

"You have nothing better to do anyway."

(a few minutes later)

"A picnic, a picnic!" Hanyu raced out of the car. She spread her arms out as if they were fairy wings made of the finest gossamer. "Mommy, you have the best ideas!"

Chi-lan miserably glowered at the ground as she stepped out of the vehicle. She hated it when the sun shone so strongly on her pale skin. The dark and concealing clothes she wore made matters no better for her as the warmth made her pores weep. Throwing a baleful glare at the sun, she swore under her breath.

Seya grabbed the picnic basket out of the car's trunk and held it in her right hand. With her available hand, she grabbed a red and white checkered blanket that was also in the back of the vehicle. She walked off the side of the road where she parked the car and onto the grassy ground.

"Is this where we'll be having our picnic?" she asked Hanyu more than Chi-lan.

"Yes, Mommy," Hanyu said sweetly. "I picked this spot because it's right next to all these pretty little flowers!"

Indeed, there was a little patch of daisies a few feet away from where Hanyu wanted the blanket to be laid. Seya genuinely and warmly smiled at the child. Her youngest was her sunbeam. Chi-lan, on the other hand, was as venomous and unpleasant as nightshade.

"Hanyu, baby," Seya said, placing the blanket down. She ran her hands along the fabric, flattening it out perfectly. "I'd love a bouquet from you. I have a plastic cup and we can fill it up with water. Then you can put the daisies in it and you'll have made a lovely centerpiece for our picnic."

"Okay, Mommy, I can do that," she nodded her head.

Immediately, the perpetually optimistic child began inspecting the island of daisies. She got down on her hands and knees, seeking for the most marvelous and comely of the dainty flowers for the bouquet Seya requested.

Seya looked over her shoulder, seeing Chi-lan sulking over by a few boulders. The teenager was sitting on one of the rocks with her knees pulled up to her chest tightly. Her arms were folded across her knees and her chin rested on her left forearm. She looked like she was curling herself up into a defensive little shell of humanity.

The matriarch walked over to Chi-lan's side quietly. The girl was immune to her approach and she remained lost in her grim thoughts. Seya was now standing inches away from her daughter but the latter still seemed impervious to the world around her.

"Chi-lan?" Seya set a hand on her firstborn's spine.

The dark minded girl visibly flinched at her mother's words. She wasn't anticipating her presence or voice at all. Blinking her eyes a few times, Chi-lan looked at Seya.

"What?" she said almost inaudibly.

"Now that Hanyu is occupied, I want to talk to you, Missy," Seya ran her fingers through her child's black hair. "It's just between you and me."

Chi-lan's stoic visage softened a little. Her face reddened. She rubbed her forehead as if she was experiencing a migraine.

"What, Mom?" she played stupid.

"Chi-lan, you know what I'm talking about," Seya had some solemnity in her voice. "You know what's going on. We can be blunt and honest here without corrupting your sister."

Suddenly, the seemingly icy girl began to weep. Her mascara began to run, giving her a most unflattering and borderline scary appearance. Chi-lan sniffled and gripped her mother's hand. The pressure she exerted was bit unexpected but it wasn't uncomfortable.

"Mom, I don't want to die," she confessed.

(…)

Hanyu cocked her head to the side. From a distance, she watched her mother and sister converse. She had no interest in what they were talking about since she assumed it was grown-up affairs either way. She was six and she had no time, nor the cognitive capabilities to take interest in such silly things. Besides, she was too obsessed with finding perfect daisies.

The patch near the picnic spread proved to be unacceptable to her nitpicky standards and Hanyu decided to find more of the particular flora elsewhere. To her dismay, she couldn't find any within her field of vision. But that meant nothing to her.

"Mommy won't mind if I go look for better daisies," she mumbled to herself. "I'll be really quick and she won't even notice I was gone! I'll be a ninja! Except I don't wear black like Chi-lan…"

She spotted the crest of a steep hill that was just screaming to be climbed. Luckily, for that hill, Hanyu was there to answer the call. The little girl jogged over to the base of the hill that was about three hundred feet away from where she was standing.

Hanyu looked over her shoulder again to make sure Seya and Chi-lan were still by the rocks. There were still there, completely ignorant of the child's intentions. She turned her back on them fully and began to climb the hill.

"_Maybe if I get to the top of the hill, I'll see a field of daisies!_" she said inwardly. "_Mommy will be so happy! And maybe Chi-lan will finally smile once she sees all the pretty flowers I brought back!_"

The little girl's legs pounded up the slope and occasionally grasped onto a tiny tree or some other object to support herself. Soil shifted beneath her sneakers but this didn't deter her. Her thighs started to burn from the exertion of scaling the pint-sized mountain yet Hanyu didn't mind. The thought of a field of daisies with unicorns galloping in it was too great to put off. More than anything else, these fluffy expectations fueled her.

After climbing it for a few minutes, the child made it to the hill's crest. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead but she ignored them. Her thighs were pounding from the exercise but like the sweat, she cast it aside. Hanyu surveyed the valley on the precipice, looking for the candidates to make the ideal bouquet.

To her greatest puzzlement and surprise, she found no heavenly field of daisies where fairies danced around on flower heads. There were no princesses gliding through the air on Pegasus' back. There weren't even rivers of molten chocolate and trees made of licorice!

Instead, there was a white, square, giant structure in the valley. It gleamed proudly in the afternoon sunshine and it looked as if it was impeccably constructed by an artist with big (and highly egotistic) dreams. At each of the four corners of this impressive piece of mystery architecture, there was one spire that reached up to the heavens. They looked like giant lances and they gave off a real sensation of grandeur and elegance to this piece of art.

"A soccer field!" Hanyu gushed. "But wait, there's no grass there! What is that thing?"

Upon further observation, she spotted a dot in the middle of this arena. As she squinted, the dot turned into the figure of a very strange looking man. With the way the sun was shining on him, Hanyu could see this was no ordinary looking man. She could've sworn he had large black wings that looked like a beetle's jutting from his shoulder blades! He was also colored green to boot!

Her little mind raced, trying to figure out this mystery. Hanyu began to slowly go down the other side of the hill, approaching the arena. She crept along carefully, trying not to be spotted by the strange winged man. From the bottom of the hill, the arena was about one thousand five hundred feet away but Hanyu planned on staying at the base and spy on him from a distance.

Then she abruptly gasped. As she studied him from the "safe" distance, the truth struck at Hanyu like a train slamming into a drunkard. Her eyes widened immensely and she couldn't believe she was actually in his midst.

"It's Bug Man!" she whispered to herself. "He was on TV a few days ago!"

Shocked quickly evolved into awe. Hanyu sprinted from her hiding spot and dangerously pushed her luck. To her extreme misinformation, her chances of survival were dwindling at an astonishing rate.

(…)

"Honey, I know how you feel," Seya kissed Chi-lan's tear moistened cheek. "No one is ready for the Cell Games."

"We're all going to die!" the teenager wept uncontrollably. "Who can stop Cell, huh? No one can, we're all screwed! After he crushes everyone at his stupid tournament, we're all going to be baptized with fire and destruction! The planet's gonna blow up!"

"That's why I'm trying to do what I can to make sure our final days are happy. I didn't want you to talk about any of this with your sister because she's so young and innocent. I want her to remain as oblivious for as long as possible."

"What happens when she sees a big wall of fire coming right for our house?"

"When the Cell Games come, we're going to watch it on TV. When he defeats the last challenger, we're going to turn it off. Then, we're going to sit in the living room and wait. As long as we have each other in the end, that's all that's going to matter."

"I think I want to kill myself before the day comes. I don't want to wait to die... I know Hercule Satan will try to save us all but I highly doubt he could accomplish anything. I always hated that guy anyway."

Seya gripped her daughter's hand. Some tears came to her eyes too.

"Don't," the mother urged, "think of what your sister would think if you killed yourself. As for Mr. Satan, I give him credit for at least volunteering for trying."

"I'll poison myself on the day of the Games and then die upstairs in my bed. You can tell Hanyu I went to sleep. She'll believe you."

"I want you in my arms when we leave this place, Chi-lan. I want my daughters with me. I want all three of us to go together. If I could avoid having you two die, I'd willingly sacrifice myself… But Cell is a beast. He'll kill anyone just for the heck of it. No one's going to survive so we might as well stick together to the very end. Do you understand?"

"Y-yeah… Yeah, I do. But I'm so scared."

"I am too. You are definitely not alone, sweetie." She paused. "'_Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die_'."

Chi-lan scoffed.

"Epicurean," the girl proclaimed.

"Why not?" Seya asked rhetorically.

"Good point."

"Can I ask you to speak nothing of all this to Hanyu? I still want her to remain in the dark about the impending apocalypse."

"Yes, I won't say anything." Chi-lan hesitated for a moment. "Mom?"

"What, baby?"

Seya didn't expect to see her daughter wrap her arms around her body. Chi-lan dug her face into her mother's shoulders, still mourning. The junior female embraced Seya tightly, not wanting to let go. She forgot that she was a typical, moody teenager who knew everything. Right now, she was a scared version of her little sister.

"I'm sorry for acting like a punk," Chi-lan professed her sorrow. "I'm just a stupid kid!"

"I forgive you, Chi-lan." Seya kissed the crown of her head. "I love you."

"I love you too, Mom. You're right: let's make our last days worth it."

"Done deal…"

Seya continued to allow her daughter to embrace her. The sides of the heads rested up against each other and the woman sleepily focused on the background behind Chi-lan.

A tremor of fear sent a damaging quake through the ether of her immortal soul. Seya's eyes frantically scanned the area, searching for little Hanyu. She began to hold Chi-lan in a tighter hold as her terror overcame her. Her breathing became heavy and panicked.

Chi-lan could feel and hear the tension swelling up inside her mother. She pulled her head back, looking Seya in the eyes.

"Mom, what's going on?" she asked.

"I don't hear or see your sister," Seya replied gravely.

(…)

"_Wow! Wait until I tell Mommy and Chi-lan I saw Bug Man!_" There was a victorious smile on her face. "_They'll never believe me! When school starts back up after the Games, I can't wait to tell all my classmates too!_"

Hanyu was standing in one of the spire's shadows. Intently, she was watching Cell's form standing in the middle of the arena. He was meditating as usual: his arms crossed with his eyes shut. It almost looked as if he was sleeping standing up.

She spotted a little rock by her foot. Hanyu bent down and picked it up. Then she looked at Cell, still standing inanimately like a statue. The child decided to take a chance no adult would dare to make.

She flung the pebble at the green bio-android. Because she was young and not a very good thrower, the pebble fell short of Cell. It bounced ever so softly off the arena and settled on it a second later. Hanyu held her breath, waiting for some kind of reaction. The seconds felt like hours…

"_Did he die standing up?_"

Turning around, she saw the hill and was reminded her family was on the other side of it. Immediately, she was reminded that it was a foolish idea to go off without asking without her mother's permission. Seya would give her a fairly thorough spanking for this trouble. That would totally ruin the picnic.

"_Uh oh… I better go back before Mommy freaks out again_."

Just then, Hanyu saw a pebble land right at her feet. The sky couldn't rain pebbles could it? She bent down and picked it up. It looked an awful like the one she threw earlier but then again, a lot of rocks looked the same.

"Did you lose your pet rock?"

She dropped the pebble and gasped. Hanyu spun around, nearly bumping into a tall green man in speckled armor. Her little eyes were the size of saucers.

"Bug Man!" she exclaimed. "You weren't sleeping?"

Cell wrinkled his nose at her nickname for him. Then he chuckled softly.

"Now this is a strange little spy," he said. "My last visitor was some brainless news reporter…"

"I saw you on TV!" Hanyu pointed out.

"Oh, did you? Now tell me why you're here disturbing the peace."

"I was looking for daisies for my mommy. She said daisies would make things nicer! We're having a picnic!"

Cell rolled his eyes. A picnic? What a foolish Human pastime…

"Didn't she teach you the importance of sticking close and not wandering too far off?" he asked with a wicked smirk.

"Yes," Hanyu nodded, "but I forgot."

"You forgot? That's not a very good reason or reply. How old are you?"

"I'm six…"

"Your mother is a negligent fool."

"What's a 'negligent fool'?"

"She'll quickly turn from a negligent one to a dead one very shortly."

"Bug Man, what are you talking about?"

The android looked at her as if she was a complete dunce. His anger roiled like the burning sun at the name she called him by. The sheer stupidity and lack of visible fear she wielded infuriated Cell and he very quickly thought about squishing her as if she was an ant to turn the tables on her. She had encroached far too close to his arena where he was happily confined, meditating and preparing for the day of the Cell Games to arrive. This little brat had disturbed the peace: although he had to privately confess it was a bit stagnating and boring.

"My name is not 'Bug Man'," he corrected Hanyu. "Do you even know my name? Do you have a brain, child?"

"I know your name's Cell!" she said. "But I like to call you 'Bug Man'! You look like a giant grasshopper!"

"You think this is all and fun and games, don't you? I'm sorry to burst your bubble but this is not amusing in the least bit. Tell me your name."

"Hanyu. Hey, Bug…"

Cell threw a hostile glare at Hanyu. She swallowed nervously and wrung her hands. If looks could kill, she would've been utterly annihilated at a molecular level.

"Uh, I mean, Cell…" She restarted. "I'm gonna watch the Cell Games on TV in a few days."

"Oh, are you?" He folded his muscular arms across his broad frame.

"Yeah, I wanna see the people fight you."

Cell's pride and nauseating arrogance swelled at the thought of having his Games televised for the whole of Earth to see. Apparently, his broadcast had caught the attention of all sects and spectrums of society: even the younglings were intrigued by what he had in store for the planet. Then he thought to himself that of course all the inhabitants had to have been curious with him considering he had absorbed thousands of innocents and had been granted near divine capabilities through said absorptions. In fact, it tickled him more than anything else. They feared him yet held him in extreme awe before his illustrious perfection. He couldn't blame them for feeling that way. Cell couldn't wait to see that horror overwhelm the wonder as he'd dismantle the world personally at the Games' conclusion.

"Ah, so you are curious to see my power?" he asked, feeling as selfish and as egomaniacal as ever. "I'm afraid you must wait, Hanyu. Just remember that good things come to those who wait ever so patiently. Besides, I need to conserve as much energy as I can to prepare for that glorious day. However, I promise you will not feel robbed and disappointed at the end of the Games."

"You're magic!" Hanyu accused. "When you were on TV, you made the city explode!"

Cell couldn't help but to laugh out loud. When he did laugh, he did so heartily. The simplicity and ignorance of this child was really humoring him. She had turned from pest to comedian quite quickly before him.

The child eyed him with a confused look. Legitimately, she didn't comprehend what was so funny. Hanyu kicked the pebble at her feet.

"'Magic'?" he repeated. "Child, it's not magic: it's all real! That simple-minded mother of yours must be filling your head with lies. Either that or she's trying to protect you somehow. At the end of the Cell Games, it won't matter anymore."

"What lies is Mommy telling me?" Hanyu was terribly befuddled.

"Oh, never mind. You're as equally naïve and primitive as her. It was interesting conversing with you, Hanyu, but you must be on your merry way. I have to finish preparing myself mentally and physically for the big day."

"Oh, that's right!" Hanyu completely dropped everything she talked about him with and was reminded of the brutal smacking she might get for straying off. "Mommy's gonna kill me! I've been gone for a long time!"

"You needn't worry about that. I can assure you your mother won't raise her hand in hostility towards you… She'll be lavishing you with affection when she sees you return to her."

(…)

"HANYU!" Seya screamed. "Answer me right now, young lady!"

Chi-lan checked behind a large boulder, seeing her sister wasn't playing a torturous game of hide and seek with her and their mother. She bit her nails anxiously and she had difficulty breathing. The teenage girl began to pace frantically, thinking of what else she could do to remedy the situation.

"Where are you?" Seya almost pleaded. "Hanyu, if this is a game, stop it right now!"

"Mom, we looked everywhere!" an exasperated Chi-lan yelled. "It's like she disappeared off the face of the Earth!"

"Don't you dare say that! She couldn't have wandered off too far! How long were we talking with our backs turned to her?"

"Do I look like a clock to you?"

"Oh, this is all my fault!" Seya gripped her head in her hands. "Could this possibly get any worse?"

"Mom, chill out… How about we split up and we'll meet back here within twenty minutes if we can't find her? She's… She's gotta be here somewhere."

"Mommy! Chi-lan!"

Both of the females nearly leapt out of their skin when they heard Hanyu call out to them. They looked around feverishly, eager to spot her. However, she was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you hear her?" Chi-lan asked Seya.

"Yes, I did," she replied. "But where is she at?"

"Excuse me, ladies."

A fourth voice joined in. Now, it sounded like it was coming from the sky. In unison, Seya and Chi-lan looked upwards to the origin of the masculine voice.

To their greatest astonishment and deepest terror, the two saw Cell levitating a mere fifteen feet above them. He was looking right back at them with a smug grin on his pale face. In his right arm, he held Hanyu who was completely unharmed. In fact, she even seemed to be enthused with floating in the air as he held her.

"My life is flashing before my eyes!" Chi-lan pitifully blubbered. "This is the end! We're all gonna die a few days ahead of schedule!" Huge tears burst forth like a breached levee. "Just kill me now so I don't have to suffer any longer!"

"My…My baby…" Seya stuttered. "Give her to me!"

"You wouldn't want me drop her, would you?" Cell asked. "You've already lost her once and you don't want to lose her permanently: for today at least."

He descended to the ground. Cell lightly placed his feet on the dusty, rocky earth. Then he knelt down, setting Hanyu on her feet. The girl walked a few steps over to her family members.

Seya embraced her daughter like she never did before. Chi-lan could only stare at Cell in mortification, her jaw gaping and her left eye twitching.

"You know, I noticed you Humans aren't very good parents," Cell condoned Seya's parental potential. "You let them run around free and let them get into whatever trouble they come across. I decided to return her to you because every family ought to remain as close together as possible before this planet goes up in smoke. I suggest that you three should enjoy what little time you have left."

"Oh, yeah, right!" Chi-lan mustered up what courage she could. She decided to feel like a hero before she'd die. "You never cared about families when you killed all those people! How dare you say something like that, Cell! You don't care about anything at all, you arrogant, disgusting, nightmarish, cruel monster!"

Seya gasped, shocked with what Chi-lan had just done. At any moment, she was expecting to watch her eldest get torn in two at the waist. Daringly, she looked back at Cell.

"Alright, you caught me," he laughed softly. "In all actuality, I don't care. I just know Hanyu wants to watch me on the day of the Cell Games and her wish will be granted. Why don't you two join her in watching it? It'll be fun for the whole family." He spotted the checkered blanket in the background. "Besides, I don't want to spoil this pleasant little family outing."

Cell floated back up into the air with the three pairs of eyes glued to him incessantly. He maintained eye contact with them, not wanting to ignore them just yet.

"At least you returned my daughter," Seya spoke up. "You could've killed her with no effort at all."

"Miss, I am only perfect," he said in a tone that was meant to sound humble and graceful. "At this point, I only crave to strike the strong. Only after I eliminate them will I turn my gaze to you and your other Human brethren. Good day, ladies." Then he focused his attention on Hanyu. "Don't cause your mother anymore grief. She has enough to worry about anyway."

He then turned around and promptly returned to his precious arena. The two elder females could only stare at the empty space in the air where Cell once occupied it. Hanyu on the other hand, seemed unaffected.

"Hey, Mommy," she said. "I think there'll be free seats at the arena."


End file.
